Under Secretary of the Army Patrick J. Murphy visited TARDEC labs over a two-day period last week and shared some of his military and Congressional experiences as the keynote speaker for the TACOM Life Cycle Management Command's Acquisition in Transition conference.

The Honorable Murphy spent several hours receiving briefs from leaders and engineers at both the Detroit Arsenal home location, as well as at Selfridge Air National Guard Base where TARDEC has several satellite labs.

Discussions included TARDEC's Digital Physical Thread process, the Squad Centric Mounted Maneuver project, and demonstrations of the Computer Automated Virtual Environment (CAVE) and the TARDEC Virtual Experimentation Capability (TVEC). TARDEC's investments in next-generation powertrain developments, as well as TARDEC's Ground Vehicle Robotics capabilities were also demonstrated and discussed. Murphy also took time to recognize the Detroit Arsenal workforce in a brief ceremony at the Selfridge ANG base.

The theme of the conference was Acquisition Challenges. Murphy talked about doing more with less, the Army's new ideas program, and the importance of telling the Army story for recruiting.

"When I left Congress almost six years ago, the Army budget was $243 billion," he said. "We've taken almost a $100 billion cut -- a 39 percent cut -- so last year's budget was $148 billion. Six years ago we didn't have ISIS, or Russia invading other countries, or the issues in the South China Sea, so I appreciate what you all do because we are all doing more with less and you are doing phenomenal work."